Iran has been in talks with a Pakistani militant group through officials in Islamabad to secure the release of five Iranian border guards kidnapped last month, an Iranian general said.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th November, 2018) Iran has been in talks with a Pakistani militant group through officials in Islamabad to secure the release of five Iranian border guards kidnapped last month, an Iranian general said.Fourteen Iranians were kidnapped in mid-October while patrolling the eastern border with Pakistan. A Sunni jihadist group later claimed to have captured 10 officers in retaliation for what it called Iran's oppression of the Muslim sect in the Sistan and Baluchestan region.
Gen. Ramezan Sharif of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said militants had agreed to release the prisoners and would start with freeing five of them, according to the Tasnim news agency. It did not name the group Tehran was negotiating with.
Iranian border guards frequently come under attack from across the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, while ethnic and sectarian infighting has been a common occurrence in Sistan and Baluchestan, populated by several minority groups.
